Q: Ever since I have had problems with my sexual performance, I have noticed that my wife’s attitude towards intimacy has changed toward intimacy has changed. Her desire is lower and it seems as though her satisfaction level is lower. I really want to see a doctor, but my wife is dead set against it. Is there anything I can tell her that might change her mind?

A: Statistics tell us that 35 percent of all men have sexual problems and more than 40 percent of women complain of some type of sexual issue. But there is no question that there is a connection between the sexes that when one person has sexual problems, the partner is likely to be feeling the effects of the vacuum of their prior intimacy and sexuality.

Nearly 300 women were surveyed in a large international study to better understand their response to their partner’s erections problems. Not surprisingly, they reported significant declines in their current sexual desire, arousal and orgasm when compared with times before the onset of their partner’s erection difficulties. They then surveyed the same women after their partner’s erections were helped with medication. The results were startling. Couples reported that since they began treatment, both the women and the man derived more pleasure from the anticipation of sexual pleasure of sexual intercourse, as well as more pleasure during intercourse and more pleasure from orgasm. Couples on treatment also showed significant gains in their overall pleasure. Even more amazing was that, on average, many believed their partners were experiencing more pleasure from their sexual activities than compared with even before the onset of the man’s erection problems!

The good news is that one of the main motivations for men with sexual problems to seek successful treatment is their honest concern for sexual satisfaction of their partner. But ironically, many women are reluctant to let their man ask for one of the new miracle erection medicines. As you might expect, a woman whose partner has erection problems clearly influences her man’s decision to go to a physician to ask for help. Perhaps if she knew that by helping her partner’s sexual ability she would dramatically increase her own sexuality and the sexual satisfaction of their relationship, she would ask her partner to run, not walk to his doctor’s appointment.